The controversy surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s academic records from Chicago State University was put on hold on Thursday, and a United States District Judge named Nancy Maldonado will review it on Monday.
Atiku Abubakar, a candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party, had earlier obtained a court order directing CSU to give his legal team access to the president’s academic records.
On Tuesday, Tinubu’s alma mater was required by a magistrate named Jeffrey Gilbert to give the applicant access to all pertinent and non-privileged documents.
The former governor of Lagos State won the 2023 presidential election, and an election petition court in Nigeria recently upheld that result. Atiku is currently contesting both of those events.
The records of admission and acceptance at the university, dates of attendance, degrees, awards, and honors earned by the former governor of Lagos State at the university, among other things, are among the documents that the PDP candidate is requesting through his attorney, Angela Liu.
But as the deadline set by Gilbert drew nearer on Thursday, Tinubu’s attorneys went to Maldonado and argued that Gilbert’s earlier decision needed to be reviewed by a district judge.
In the end, the US district judge granted the request for a review and a postponement of the order until Monday.
Maldonado stated during the emergency hearing that she would make her decision as soon as possible while keeping in mind Nigerian legal deadlines.
Atiku’s media adviser, Paul Ibe, made fun of the president before the case resumed on Monday, saying their legal team would wait for the court procedure while whatever was being kept a secret would be revealed.
In a related development, Yakubu Shemdam, the New Nigeria Peoples Party’s new national publicity secretary, has also urged Tinubu to consent to the release of his academic credentials in order to quell the mounting tension and mistrust of his detractors.
Shemdam warned that if things were to spiral out of control, even the President might become distracted.
Yunusa Tanko, the head of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, expressed a similar viewpoint when he said the president’s justification for clinging to the outcome was unacceptable.
Babatunde Ogala, coordinator of Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team, declined to comment when The PUNCH contacted him for an update on their preparation for Monday.
Ogala insisted that he is on vacation and is unable to comment on the case while speaking with our correspondent on the phone from his base in the United States.
I won’t talk about this case, the man declared. I’m on vacation. “
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria flubbed again when asked if there was a plan to fly in more Nigerian attorneys to bolster the president’s US legal team.
“I have already stated that I will not discuss it. How can I be telling you what we will or won’t do? he muttered.
Despite claims of inconsistencies with his academic record, Tinubu’s credentials showed that he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting, and management from CSU in 1979.
But in defending his choice to obtain the President’s academic history, Atiku claimed that unless a clarification was provided, Nigerians would find it challenging to comprehend the former governor of Lagos State’s academic career.
Tinubu argued that a clerical error was to blame for the discrepancies on the certificate the university issued him in response to the court’s directive that he submit a formal filing explaining why his records shouldn’t be made public.
Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael, Tinubu’s attorneys, claim that an unnamed university clerk made a mistake regarding the date the institution stated on his recently-issued certificate, resulting in “the appearance of differences. “
